The most famous economists

1.

THE MOST FAMOUS
ECONOMISTS
PERFORMED BY V.A. BUKALO

2.

ADAM SMITH
Adam Smith was the first economist and
founder of all economic science. In his book
An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the
Wealth of Nations, Smith proposed the
concept of "economic man," driven by
selfishness and the pursuit of profit. This
work is considered the cornerstone of
capitalism. By pure coincidence, it was
published in the same year 1776 as the birth
of the world's main capital power, the United
States. Smith is famous for the "invisible
hand of the market. With this "invisible
hand," Smith explained a strange paradox:
by acting in our own self-interest, each of us
not only gets richer, but also increases the
wealth of society.

3.

DAVID RICARDO
The English economist, a classicist of
political economy, a follower and at the
same time an opponent of Adam Smith,
revealed the natural tendency of the profit
rate to decrease in conditions of free
competition, developed a complete theory
about the forms of land rents. Ricardo
proved that if each country specializes in
one thing, in one commodity, everybody
wins. Moreover, a country will be richer if
it chooses to produce one type of good and
import the rest, even if it produces all the
goods more efficiently than its trading
partners.

4.

KARL MARX
Marx believed that the value of any
commodity is determined by the labor
expended on it. The capitalist can make a
profit only if the price of the commodity
exceeds the cost of production, which is
achieved solely by the exploitation of the
workers. And this, sooner or later, must lead
to the total impoverishment of the
proletariat. In the second half of the
twentieth century, it finally became clear that
Marx was wrong. In capitalist countries,
workers achieved unprecedented living
standards, while in socialist countries built
according to Marxist principles, the
population, instead of the promised
prosperity, laid its teeth on the shelf. It is
true that, after the crisis of the early twentyfirst century, Marx's ideas may once again
gain traction.

5.

JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES
English economist, founder of the Keynesian trend
in economic science.
J. M. Keynes is a central figure among economists
of the 20th century because it was he who created
the foundations of modern macroeconomic theory
capable of serving as a basis for budgetary and
monetary policy.
The Great Depression demonstrated that Smith's
"invisible hand" could not always manage the
economy and needed the heavy hand of the state. In
hard times of crisis, the state should spend more
and thereby maintain employment levels.
In addition, Keynes helped create the postwar
monetary regime, which was first pegged to the
gold standard and is now based entirely on the U.S.
dollar.

6.

JOSEPH SCHUMPETER
Austrian and American economist, political
scientist, sociologist and historian of economic
thought. He popularized the terms "creative
destruction" in economic theory and "elitist
democracy" in political science.
Schumpeter made history with his theory of
"creative destruction," according to which
capitalism is a progressive movement in which
everything old is constantly destroyed and new
is created in its place.
The International Joseph Schumpeter Society
was founded in 1986 to honor the scholar and to
study his work; the Schumpeter Institute was
founded in Berlin in 2001. Part of Schumpeter's
personal library is kept at Hitotsubashi
University in Tokyo (Schumpeter Library).

7.

FRIDRICH HAYEK
Austro-British economist and political philosopher
of positivist direction, representative of new
Austrian school, proponent of economic liberalism
and free market. Winner of the Alfred Nobel
Memorial Prize in Economics (1974).
F.A. von Hayek became the driving force behind
organization of the Mon Pelerin Society in 1947,
which united economists, philosophers, journalists
and businessmen supporting classical liberalism.
He was elected President of the Society and served
from 1947 to 1961.
Hayek was one of the leading critics of
collectivism in the twentieth century. He believed
that all forms of collectivism (even theoretically
based on voluntary cooperation) could exist only
with state support. The methodological basis of his
works was the theory of incomplete information,
inevitable when describing a complex system.
Later Hayek extended this theory with
anthropological, cultural, and information-theoretic
aspects.

8.

JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH
American economist, representative of the
old (Veblenian) institutional and Keynesian
currents, one of the prominent theoretical
economists of the 20th century.
In his academic writings (which read no less
easily than his dispatches from India) he
criticized big companies for having
excessive market power, shaping consumer
tastes and playing a major role in politics.
On the economy, however, as on everything
else, Galbraith was skeptical. In particular,
he once said that the only benefit of
economic forecasts was that they made
alchemy a respected science.

9.

MILTON FRIDMAN
American economist, winner of the 1976 Alfred
Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics for his
research on consumption, monetary history and
theory, and the complexities of stabilization
policy.
There is no need for government regulation or
intervention in the economy, Friedman argued.
Free markets regulate themselves, just as any
healthy organism regulates itself. And in order to
avoid economic crises and inflation, it is
necessary to control the money supply, i.e., to
make sure that the economy does not have too
much or too little money, just as a healthy
organism should be fed healthy, wholesome
food, not overfeeding, but also not keeping it on
a hungry ration.

10.

JOSEPH STIGHLITZ
Stiglitz is one of the leading representatives of postKeynesian economics, which combines the
teachings of Keynes with elements of Marxian
theory. Stiglitz was an economic adviser to President
Clinton and chief economist at the World Bank, a
position in which he criticized the actions of
international economic organizations. He criticized
the International Monetary Fund and his own World
Bank. Stiglitz argued that excessive worship of the
free market is the cause of persistent poverty in
developing countries.
In 2001 Stiglitz won the Nobel Prize. The Nobel
Committee noted his research showing that
information is unevenly distributed in the market
and, therefore, that the "invisible hand" of the free
market is far from as effective as Adam Smith's
followers claim.

11.

PAUL KRUGMAN
Paul Krugman is an American economist,
economic geographer and publicist, winner of the
2008 Alfred Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics.
He is the author of many books and articles on
international economics, taxation, income
distribution, macroeconomics and economic
geography.
Paul Krugman defines his economic views as
Keynesian and his political views as "liberal" in
American terminology (indicating that in
European terminology they would be called "more
or less social-democratic"). Formulated the
epistemological principles of his work.
Consistently denies the concept of bitcoin and the
idea of a currency without administration, for
which he has been repeatedly criticized by the
bitcoin community.